This ‘sequence of striking musical portraits’
certainly provided a most refreshing change to the usual
order of programming: one has grown accustomed to having
to suffer through twenty minutes of a piece listed in
terms of, say, ‘Nim – Nim: Cacophonies and
Friandises for Pennywhistle, Jew’s Harp and Fire
Siren, Opus 322’ after which the sheer joy of something
like Les Illuminations passes all too quickly,
to be followed by one stodgy symphony after the interval.
On this occasion, someone had really thought about the
order of events so that the endurance test came at the
very end, after the highlight of the vocal piece, and
the first half was no lightweight, with two major works
given widely contrasting performances, with one merely
acceptable, the other touching true greatness –
but then, that corresponds with their respective merits
anyway, as far as I am concerned.

Debussy’s La mer is often referred to as
‘the first modern symphony’ (whatever that
means) or as an ‘impressionist’ work –
a title which the composer hated. Certainly, Conlon had
decided that it was not a series of impressions at all,
but a carefully constructed set of movements to be played
almost like an introduction to the orchestra: the playing
was not without finesse but the overall feel was lacklustre.
The opposite was true of the pieces from Peter Grimes
which I don’t think I have ever heard delivered
with such conviction and such dramatic contrasts. ‘Dawn’
was delicate as gossamer, ‘Sunday Morning’
as characterful as if half the cast of the opera could
be seen walking on that beach, ‘Moonlight’
deeply brooding in its sense of foreboding, and ‘Storm’
more evocative than I have ever heard it of Britten’s
annotated instructions ‘Seascape – (whole
sea), ‘waves’, ‘wind’, ‘spray
blowing’ and ‘still centre (Grimes’
ecstasy). James Conlon may not be the starriest of conductors,
but this performance had the kind of star quality that
is all too rare.

Les Illuminations was rightly placed as the evening’s
major work, and this was the finest performance of it
which I have ever experienced. Conlon managed a feat seemingly
impossibly elusive to just about every other conductor:
to bring out all the vibrant, sometimes brash, sometimes
lush colour of Britten’s orchestration without once
drowning out the soloist. John Mark Ainsley’s singing
was a paragon: agile, beautifully coloured and flexible,
the voice gave every last ounce of meaning to lines such
as ‘Oh! Nos os sont revêtus d’un nouveau
corps amoureux’ (Our bones are re-clad in a new
loving body) and touched the heights of lyric grace in
‘et je danse’ and the languid, erotic phrases
of ‘Antique.’ Wonderful.

Well might the chap behind me murmur ‘I want to
go home now’ after that, but at least it made the
subsequent endurance test less gruesome. I share Edgard
Varèse’s great love for New York City, but
fortunately I tend to express that love by, say, shopping
rather than anything more ‘creative.’ Varèse’s
Amériques certainly gives musical expression
to his feelings – ‘the whole wonderful river
symphony which moved me more than anything ever had before…the
mere word ‘America’ meant all discoveries,
all adventures.’ However it does it a little too
much, too often: the first hearing of the fire-siren is
fun, for example, but after that it becomes embarrassing:
the programme tells us that the percussion at one point
provides the effect of ‘great skyscrapers rearing
up above teeming traffic,’ but such an ‘impression’
was not exactly what I took from the piece. The truly
memorable performances, and works, of this rapturously
received concert were both by Benjamin Britten.